


if they're gonna die young, they better live like gods

by paintngoldtrash



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Death, Disordered Eating, Grief, Grieving, Homophobia, Other, This is very indulgent, Transphobia, and the ending is very shitty, im sorry, title from anyway - kerrigan-lowdermilk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-18
Updated: 2017-08-18
Packaged: 2018-12-17 02:27:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11842059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paintngoldtrash/pseuds/paintngoldtrash
Summary: I keep thinking about how the timing seems false, how some days seem faster than my fucking pulse and others go so slow-like this morning feels like a month ago.





	if they're gonna die young, they better live like gods

**Author's Note:**

> Please read the tags for any triggers! also i'm sorry the ending sucks this is a very indulgent thing for me sue me

_ It doesn’t feel like I’m living anymore. It doesn’t feel like I’m doing anything- it just feels like I’m, I don’t know,  _ existing,  _ sitting around waiting for the song to start.  _

 

_ And why do you think that is? _

 

_ I don’t know. Maybe the song has started, and I’m just standing out in the corner, like a wallflower.  _ I kicked my feet; they didn’t reach the floor in the chair my therapist made me sit in each session.  _ I don’t know.  _ Joly recommended that I get therapy after Enjolras died. I wasn’t doing too well, and I think everyone could tell, and it worried them.  _ I don’t want to do anything anymore. Nothing risky, nothing at all, really. I just… I just go through the daily grind, everyday. All my friends are doing things, putting up memorials, planning protests, all in his honour, all so he can be remembered, and I haven’t even gone into his room since he… Since he died.  _ It always feels so foreign to say. “Enjolras” and “dead” should not be in the same sentence together. Any words that make him seem like anything less than a fearless leader, than the commanding force he is- was- should not be put together. 

 

I don’t want to think about him being nothing but a collection of ashes sitting on my mantel. It isn’t right. That’s not who he is- was. It doesn’t feel right, for a man who was so boisterous and loud, who could command a crowd with a wave of his hand, to be so fucking somber, so quiet, so receding, almost. 

 

After therapy, I go to the Musain; it’s always been this way, and it hasn’t changed in the four months since he was shot, since he died. The only real change has been where I come from; I used to go boxing with Bossuet almost every day, but I haven’t boxed since. I haven’t really done anything since; I just sit around all day, shifting to different time fillers to occupy myself and make myself forget that I should be doing something, anything, for him, or that I could have done something, could have prevented his death in some way, if I had just fucking spoke to him once- but no, I’d been too busy helping Musichetta, of course I was. 

 

I can still remember when I first met him- I was just barely sixteen, and scared shitless of being out on my own because my parents kicked me out when I came out as trans. They were having a meeting at the LGBT+ youth center in the city, and I’d managed to catch a bus to there, because it felt like the only place that I knew I could go to for support and help. I hadn’t known there was a meeting; it was late at night when I finally got there, and they were just finishing cleaning up. Enjolras had been the one ordaining the meeting, and it was only a small group from the local school, to talk about LGBT+ policies. It was an unofficial meeting, which was why it was so late that night, and also why I hadn’t known about it. Everyone from the meeting was still there, but it was only about half of the people from our friend group, only because none of us really knew each other; the only people there were Enjolras, Courfeyrac, Combeferre, and two girls who left the country for college and we ended up losing contact with. 

 

Enjolras was only a year my senior, but he seemed like he had everything together more than I ever will, especially that night, when all I had to my name was a suitcase haphazardly filled with clothes and a superhero bookbag filled with a sketchbook and anything else I didn’t want to leave home without. My favourite part about him, I remember, is how down to earth he was; he listened to what had happened, and he talked me through it like a peer, and not like a supervisor helping a helpless child. He didn’t condescend, or try to relate to what I was going through that night. Combeferre, who was two months younger than me but seemed so much wiser, offered to let me sleep in his parents’ garage; they didn’t mind, he’d said, and he’d had numerous friends stay over before. They hadn’t cared; when they learnt that I was kicked out for being trans, they let me move into their garage, free of charge. 

 

I haven’t seen Combeferre’s parents in five months. I was planning on going to see them the day after Enjolras was shot. Everything just slipped out of my hands. They came to the funeral, but I hadn’t seen them; I was swarmed with friends, and family members, and everything felt over my head. It felt like I was under water. 

 

Still, even now, it feels like I’m under water; there’s this strange, tight compression on my chest at all times, one that’s not from a binder. It feels like there’s something tearing me apart from the inside out, like a hand is inside me, taking my insides and twisting and tightening it’s fist until I can’t breath anymore. 

 

As soon as I get into the Musain I go to the bar, ordering a tea and asking the bartender- who, luckily, is someone I have let to be fully acquainted with- to throw in a shot or two of the strongest shit they have. I technically stopped drinking three years ago, around the time me and Enjolras got together, but ever since he died, I don’t see the point in abstaining anymore. My friends don’t know that I’ve began drinking again, and if they do, they don’t say anything. I don’t try to hide it from them, necessarily, but I don’t want them to worry about me; they have more pressing things to worry about, anyway. 

 

After I moved in with Combeferre and his parents, they decided that me commuting all the way to my old school just wasn’t cutting it, and Combeferre had just gotten his license that year, so his parents helped me switch to their school in the city. It was hard, considering the fact I had to have my parents sign off on a few things, but they made an agreement with Combeferre’s parents, somehow- Combeferre gets his ability to convince people to do  _ anything  _ from his parents. 

 

Living with them, and going to school with them, was a dream; they helped me pass all my classes with b-minuses or above, even while I was working at a smoothie shop almost full time. In eleventh grade, Eponine and her little brother, Gavroche, transferred to our school from another one across the country; I hadn’t known it at the time, but their parents were in legal trouble because they’d been illegally selling alcohol, amongst some other things that I never fully understood. Eponine and I clicked instantly, and that year, I moved out of Combeferre’s parents’ garage, after telling them that  _ yes _ , I know what I’m doing and  _ yes _ , I will come back if I need anything and  _ yes _ , I will be fine about a hundred times, and into a tiny studio flat with Eponine and Gavroche. The flat felt more like a box or a closet than anything else; it was completely square, and only about three hundred square feet. We hung up sheets around our beds as small dividers; Eponine and Gavroche got the bigger, queen sized bed in the left hand corner, while I got the twin sized loft bed that I’d been using at Combeferre’s; the bed was his brother’s, before he went to college. I kept storage for all three of us under our bed, including all of our clothes. In the middle area between our two beds was a small, circular table that we all sat at to eat and to do homework. We had a small loveseat on the left side of the apartment, and a miniscule kitchen on the right. There was a small, three feet hallway when you first walked in, where the bathroom was, and it was attached to the kitchen. 

 

Even though the flat was small and the faucets always leaked no matter what, it felt like home to the three of us, for the time being. It all feels so distant now. 

 

After a few minutes of sitting alone, Joly and Bossuet make their way into the Musain with a dog. The dog used to be my dog- well, me and Enjolras’s dog- but after he died, I couldn’t really take care of the dog. Joly said that them taking the dog was a temporary fix, but that was three months ago; I didn’t really care anymore. She liked Joly and Bossuet more than she ever liked me, anyhow. 

 

When the pair see me, they walk over, and I tuck my mug under my arm so they can’t smell the faint waft of alcohol that comes up when I move it and force a smile as they slide into the booth across from me, the dog tucking herself under the table at our feet and licking my foot. Joly immediately asks how I am, and I force out,  _ I’m okay.  _ I doesn’t believe me, but I could be at my prime and he still wouldn’t; he’s a hypochondriac, always so worried that the people around him will get sick and he’ll have no way to save them, or to fix them. This anxiety has worsened since Enjolras died, but I don’t say anything about it, and neither does anyone else. 

 

He could always tell when someone was at least slightly under the weather by just a glance, though; I never knew how he did it. Recently, however, he just thinks everyone is sick. I think we all are, but not in the way he believes, not in a way that can be ‘fixed’ so easily; you can’t fix a broken heart with a bandaid and some anti-biotics. 

 

Both him and Bossuet are jumpy today, and I know that there is news coming that I don’t want to hear; I can see it in the frantic way Bossuet’s eyes dart around the room, desperate to look at something, anything that isn’t me. 

 

_ So, Grantaire,  _ Joly begins, and this is it, I think, this is when they tell me that they’ve thought it over and they want to kick me out of the group- it’s only fair, really, because I haven’t done anything to help them in four months, and we’re supposed to be a group of activists, not sit-around-and-mope-ivists,  _ We’ve been thinking, and Courfeyrac and Combeferre agree, that it’s time to look through some of Enjolras’ stuff.  _ I’m taken aback for a moment, blinking hard; this wasn’t what I was thinking at all. Why would they do that? I pause, and the mood has shifted; the hot air, hanging awkwardly in the air, is palpable. 

 

_ Why are you telling me this?  _ I say, because I don’t care. They can look through all this stuff, they’re the ones who have most of his stuff from the hospital. When he’d died, I wasn’t able to collect any of that stuff; I was inconsolable, sobbing onto Eponine’s shoulder. The four of them Joly, Bossuet, Combeferre, and Courfeyrac, had cleaned it all out and put it somewhere, probably in Combeferre’s spare room that he had in his flat. 

 

At my words, Joly reaches out and clasps my hands in his, and I have no choice but to let go of my tea, lest it spill over. I think I can smell the alcohol- I know I can- but he doesn’t say anything. Bossuet makes a face.  _ We want to look through the stuff at your flat, too.  _

 

I’m even more confused than before.  _ Why? I don’t- why?  _ I ask it again, because I don’t get it- I can’t get it. 

 

_ We think it’s time, Grantaire.  _

 

_ Well you’re wrong!  _ I’m shocked by my own outburst of anger, flinching as spilt tea hits my lap. I slide out of the booth unceremoniously and glare accusingly at Joly for two seconds before tripping my way out of the Musain. How dare they- how dare they want to take my memory of him? If they clean out his room, if they steal my every memory of him- of course they want to clean out his room, I think, of course they do. They don’t want me to have any memory of him, just like they don’t. They have their memorials, and they can dedicate their every little thing to him, but they’ve forgotten him, and who he was, really. They only know him to be that scared, helpless boy, in the hospital for two weeks as the doctors tried in vain to save him, to save any semblance of him that I used to know. It hadn’t worked. 

 

They, all of them, were moving on with their lives, were forgetting him, and they wanted me to forget him too. 

 

And suddenly it feels like I’m drowning, like I’ve been thrown into the water all over again, and I’m not just sitting, resting underwater, but I’m being pulled under, tentacles of seaweed pulling me farther and farther down as I try to get away from it, from all of it, from everything. The thoughts in my brain are rushing too fast, two hundred miles an hour, and they won’t stop. I keep thinking about Joly, how worried he looked as I rushed out, how Bossuet couldn’t even look at me, and suddenly I’m crying, and I duck into a dark alley that I don’t recognize as I’m suddenly hit with a bout of vertigo; my hand scrapes against a rough brick wall as I dry heave everything I haven’t ate in the past two days onto the cement in front of me. Through my tears, I can’t really see what’s going on, and the fact that it is slowly becoming darker as the sun sets isn’t helping. After I’ve finished dry heaving, I sit down, leaning up against a dumpster with dark green chipped paint. I’m not sure how long I sit there for, crying, but once the tears have subdued, I notice that the sun is completely down and the streetlights have all flicked on around me. 

 

I stumble my way home, still not fully on my feet, still not able to stand straight. I worry, vaguely, that Joly and Bossuet might be at the flat, might try to talk to me, but then I remember I changed the locks because someone had broken in three months ago and it freaked me out. I didn’t want them stealing any of Enjolras’ stuff. 

 

When I get home, I look around and I begin crying again. It’s such a lonely little flat; a flat built for two, occupied by only one. One and a fucking urn, sitting on the mantel into the living room because I didn’t know where else to put it. It had been on the table, but I’d stumbled into the table one night, drunkenly, and knocked it down, almost smashing the urn in the process. If I broke it… I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself. For fuck’s sake, I shouldn’t have his urn- someone who can actually take care of him should have it, someone who knows how to handle themselves after their boyfriend dies should have it, someone who can get themself back on their feet, someone who doesn’t wallow in their own self pity. 

 

Fuck, I miss him. 

 

I angrily stumble into my bedroom- the one we used to share, when he wasn’t up late working in his room- and fall into bed, twisting and turning for hours until I fall into a restless, agitated sleep. 

 

The next day, no one comes over, and I sit at home, staring at the blank, black screen of the switched off television. Enjolras was never one for the television; he only turned it on for the news in the morning, and he’d watch it while sipping at his coffee and working on some last minute paperwork for one of the teachers at the college he went to. He would have graduated this summer, actually; he was only two months short of graduation. They had an ‘in memorial’ thing for him, where they called his name and one of his friends picked up his diploma and said a few words, but I didn’t go. Joly had tried persuading me-  _ Come on,  _ he said,  _ it’ll help with closure-  _ but I just couldn’t. To see the valedictorian stand up and give a speech, so proud, when it should have been him; to see everyone else who knew him graduating, going on with their lives, while he was unable to, stuck forever on my fucking  _ mantel-  _ I just couldn’t do it. 

 

I keep thinking about every decision he ever made, big and little, in his life, from when his parents moved his family into the city soon after his older brother, Claquesous, was born, to when he glared fiercely into the eyes of the brutish police officer with a gun way too big for a group of unarmed students and various other twentysomethings. I doubt the smallest decisions he made, from him beginning to bleach his hair when he was eighteen to him taking two years off of college to intern for a local lawyer, which caused him to graduate two years after Courfeyrac and I, and most of our friends. I constantly wonder, if he hadn’t bumped into Marius in the library, three years ago, when Marius was still a bumbling freshman, younger than all of us and so fucking confused about almost everything in the big city, would it have happened? Would Marius’ grandfather gotten so pissed at our little group, or would he have stayed annoyed yet docile, because his  _ precious  _ grandchild wasn’t ‘tainting’ himself by associating with us and not with the political side he, personally, took to? Would Marius’ grandfather, then, called the police on us for ‘inciting violence’? Would any of it have happened? Is Marius really all to blame? Is anyone really to blame? Am I to blame? I can’t stop questioning everything around me. 

 

Enjolras, ever the optimist, always believed that we could reform the government, that we could find a better way for everything, and that it could all be fixed. He believed that eventually, all will be better, and he wanted to help that cause. He knew of all the bigoted policies, of the bigoted politics who imposed them, and in the face of all that, he chose to stand tall, and try to change things for the better- and he believed he was able to do it, that we, as a collective, were able to raise a little hell and change something. 

 

I can still remember challenging everything he wanted to do, how he wanted to do it, always scoffing at everything he proposed we do;  _ How will this work? Hanging pride flags on every corner isn’t going to stop a trans woman from being killed down that alley.  _ I can still remember the glaring look he gave me each time, how the annoyance he tried to hide slowly seeped into his voice as I continued to antagonize him. Even after we became friends, after we began dating, I still would provoke him, and he still would snap at me. He told me, one night while we both were half asleep, smushed together on my couch, that some of my criticisms helped him plan better, even though they were annoying at the time, and that I would be a ‘good politician.’ I told him,  _ I wouldn’t ever want to be someone so corrupt,  _ and he laughed, kissed my forehead, and told me to go to bed. 

 

I skip therapy the day after that; I normally have it on Tuesdays and Thursdays, on the days my therapist is the least busy, but I don’t care enough to go. I suppose she’ll be a bit worried, but I can just tell her that I was busy helping a friend; for some reason, she’s so big on helping people and friendship.  _ You shouldn’t isolate your friends, Grantaire,  _ she’d say, or  _ Do you think maybe it’ll feel nice to help someone, even if it’s just holding a door for someone?  _ She’s quite the philanthropist, I think. 

 

I think a lot about my ideals, too; what am I supposed to believe? Marius has become big on philanthropy; Combeferre and Courfeyrac have become more involved in activism; even Eponine and Gavroche have began getting involved in politics since he died. I feel like I’ve become more of a cynic than before, and I’m definitely a nihilist, I think. Where is the meaning in a life where unarmed students of colour can be gunned down in cold blood by a police officer who doesn’t get any repercussions bar a small slap on the wrists in the form of an unpaid fucking leave? And I can’t really get behind any activism or politics that everyone around me has gotten into, because I don’t believe we can better the world, so I don’t see the point in trying. At one point, I believed in Enjolras- he had this compelling fervor and drive that drew you in, and made you want to believe in him completely, no matter what he was saying- but I can’t believe in the ideals he peddled, I can’t believe in our ability to ‘better the world’. The only way the world can get better is if another asteroid crashes down on us and causes another K-T extinction. We all deserve to die anyway. 

 

A week later, Eponine shows up at my door, with Gavroche in tow and a plate of chocolate brownies in her hand.  _ I spoke to Joly,  _ she explains as I let her in,  _ And he told me you uh, you weren’t doing too well.  _

 

_ So you brought brownies?  _

 

_ Homemade. I remember you used to love when I made them. I also added a little something special, if you catch my drift.  _ She nodded to the plate, and then to Gavroche.  _ He can’t have any, obviously.  _

 

_ It’s no fair!  _ He moaned, as if on queue, glancing up from the Gameboy Eponine bought him from the thrift shop for his birthday last year.  _ I’m fourteen!  _

 

_ I told you you have to wait until you’re at least sixteen. You know the rules.  _ She ruffled his hair as he rolled his eyes, shoving her hand away and going back to his game with a dramatic sigh. Eponine shook her head and took the saran wrap off the brownies and set them on the counter; I took one, if only to appease her, and motioned toward the living room. She stayed for a few hours, before leaving to take Gavroche to soccer practice. I promised her that I’d go to one of his games this season as I closed the door, sighing, and grabbed another brownie before making my way back into my bedroom. 

 

Two days after Eponine came by, Courfeyrac and Combeferre showed up, boxes in hand and fake-cheery smiles on their faces. Momentarily, I debate slamming the door in their faces and crawling back into bed, but before I can, Courfeyrac is shoving his way into the door. 

 

_ What’re you doing here?  _ I ask apathetically, rubbing at my cheek. 

 

_ Didn’t Eponine tell you?  _ Combeferre asks, glancing up at me from over his glasses. I can remember when he first got glasses, and he was so self conscious of them; he was already the shortest, scrawniest kid in the class, and the glasses just added to all that. Now, he looks good in them, and I can’t imagine him without them. 

 

_ Tell me what?  _ I ask, stepping backwards into the counter behind me and narrowing my eyes in anticipation for the answer I know I’m going to get. 

 

Instead, however, I get a lambastic sigh as he sets the boxes in his hands down and pulls his phone out. I notice, now, that they boxes are filled with stuff, and I send a prayer to the God that I don’t think I believe in anymore, thanking him for saving me from them forcing their way into Enjolras’ room today. 

 

_ We cleaned out some of the stuff we have of Enj’s, and we have some that we thought you might want,  _ Courfeyrac explained.  _ When ‘Nine said she was coming down, I asked her to tell you.  _

 

_ Couldn’t tell me yourself?  _ I don’t say; instead, I nod, and say,  _ Okay. You can set it on the table and I can look through it later.  _

 

_ Actually, we kind of hoped we could look through it together, y’know…  _

 

_ I don’t actually.  _ I shift my weight to my other foot, taking a sip of my coffee that’s gone grossly lukewarm. 

 

_ It’s just like… A little memory session, I guess. We can look through stuff and… Remember him.  _

 

_ You haven’t done that enough at all your public vigils?  _

 

_ That’s not what I mean, Grantaire. It’s much different.  _

 

_ Okay.  _ I resist the urge to roll my eyes and turn toward my coffee pot, turning it on. I think about how persistent the two of them are, and realise I’m not going to get out of this if I tried with all my might, and decide to just give in completely.  _ Want coffee?  _

 

Combeferre’s face contorts into a vague grin, and he nods.  _ Please.  _

 

Eventually, we end up sitting on the floor of the dining room, surrounded by a mess of memories and now-empty boxes, and I’m not sure how, but outside the window, the sun has gone down and I can see the moon peaking through the leaves of a tree. There are tissues around us, too, and all three of us have cried more than I thought we would. My stomach grumbles, and Courfeyrac says,  _ Do you guys want to clean up a bit and go down to the cafe on the corner for a late dinner?  _

 

Combeferre nods, and the two of them look at me, squinting, and I know I’m not going to get out of it, so I nod reluctantly, standing up with them and motioning toward the mess around us.  _ We can just leave this here, I’ll clean it up with I get back, _ and the two of them agree without a fight, which surprises me. 

 

I leave them early, glancing at my watch and feigning shock at how late it was, muttering something about an art meeting in the morning that I know they see right through. Regardless, they let me leave without a fight, watching me until I turn the corner and they can no longer see me anymore. When I get in the house, and immediately see the mess around my dining room, I turn around and walk right back out. 

 

Eventually, I find myself in an old, run down pub, surrounded by muscly, butch men in leather jackets with motorcycles in the front. It’s in a bad part of the city, and I knew I probably shouldn't be there, but I didn't care enough. I used to hang around in places like this before I quit drinking, and it almost felt like I was coming home, in a strange, vaguely sinister way. I ordered multiple rounds, downing one drink after another. The bartender, a young, scrawny man with a scar across his forehead, seemed to recognize me, though I can’t place him; he calls me by name, and says that he’s going to put my drinks on my ‘tab’, which I didn't even know I had. 

 

After a while, the bartender told me he was cutting me off;  _ Enough’s enough, R. Do you need me to call a cab?  _

 

_ No, no. Call ‘Ras.  _

 

_ Ras?  _

 

_ E-Enjolras. Call him.  _ I stand up, my hands shaking as I pull my phone out from my back pocket, tossing it at the bartender. In my inebriated state, I almost recognize him, as if I can place him somewhere; a back alley, bruised, in a tatty leather jacket, a bag of sniff in his left hand, but- no, it must be someone else. 

 

He has my cell phone in his hand, pressed against his ear, and he’s talking to someone.  _ No, he told me to call you… Who is this?.... Okay…. Can you come pick him up?...  _ His brow is furrowed, he looks concerned. If he had blond hair, he couldn't almost be Enjolras- in fact, he looks so much like Enjolras… I blink and rub my eyes, and the similarities are gone.  _ Your friend is going to come pick you up, okay?  _ He says to me, and I nod, gripping tightly onto the counter in front of me. 

 

_ One more before I go?  _ The bartender shakes his head at me and sighs, turning around to wipe the counter behind him. I notice that almost everyone who was in here when I came in is gone, and it’s only me and the bartender now. I watch him move, the way his shoulders cut into the air around him. He seemed emaciated and scrawny, but also like he could kill someone if he wanted. Apparently, I vocalized this, because he scoffs with a playful look in his eye, turning away from me to wipe the other end of the counter. 

 

A few moments later, Jehan comes in, Enjolras’ phone in one hand and the tips of their hair twisting in the other.  _ What're you doing here, Taire?  _ They ask, thanking the bartender- by name, I think- and giving him some money. They let me lean against them on the way to their car, tripping over my feet and stumbling all the way. 

 

I can remember when I met them- they’d came stumbling into the library during an early Les Amis meeting when we were all still in high school, curly ginger hair blazing, panting heavily and muttering something about pointless high school bullies and not wanting to get another black eye. They were a freshman then, but still so confident in themselves, wearing the most absurd things- that day, they were wearing a neon orange tee-shirt with light-wash denim dungarees covered in various different pins and a pair of bright purple combat boots that were a size too big for them; they never let ‘pointless high school bullies’ get to them, ever. I always admired that in them, their ability to let everything wash over them like it means nothing. They joined the Amis after that, and it almost felt like they’d always been there with us, because they fit in with us so  _ well.  _

 

_ Don’t call Enjolras,  _ I mutter to Jehan as they begin to drive, their eyebrows furrowing as they watch the road in front of them. 

 

_ Oh honey…  _ They glance at me, and then ask,  _ Do you want to go to your house, or do you want to come to mine?  _

 

_ I don't want Enjolras to know I’m drinking again. I don’t want him to worry, I don't want him to know.  _

 

_ Okay sweetie, okay.  _ They sound almost like my mother, and I immediately want to vomit. They pull over when I vocalize this, and then suddenly everything I drank is on the ground beside their car, and on their shoes- bright blue and yellow Converses. I want to apologize, but they don't let me, instead they rub my back, whispering little comforting things into my hair. When they thought I was okay, they got back into the car.  _ They’re ugly shoes anyway.  _ I don’t laugh.  _ I’m going to take you to my house, okay?  _ I nod, leaning against the door and rubbing my eyes. My mouth tastes like vomit.  _ When we get in, I’m just going to give you some water and get you washed up, and then you’re going to go to bed, okay?  _ I glance at the dashboard clock; it’s 3:27am. I probably pulled them out of bed, I realise, and I immediately feel guilty. 

 

Everyone around me is aiding me hand and foot, treating me like a child, because I can't do anything on my own. I can’t even stay sober on my own. I can't do anything. I really  _ am  _ a child. 

 

I glance at Jehan; they’re in a pair of wrinkled white jeans with an oversized mute orange and white striped nightshirt tucked into them, and I sigh, turning away from the them and staring out the window. 

 

We get in their flat and they made their couch up, helping me take my jeans off when I have trouble with the clasp and kissing me goodnight before they resigned off to their bedroom- leaving the hall light on because they know I don't like sleeping in pitch-black darkness like they do. 

 

After they go to bed, I lie awake thinking about how much of a burden I must be to all my friends, who do so much for me and get nothing in return. They must be so tired of me, doing nothing but bother them and drag them down. 

 

Eventually, I fall asleep, tossing and turning on Jehan’s tiny couch, and when I wake up, they’re in the kitchen behind me, shuffling around quietly as they try and make breakfast. When they see that I’m awake, they come into their living room with a plate that has scrambled eggs, pancakes, and bacon on it in their hand.  _ How’re you feeling?  _ They ask, and I shrug, not knowing how to explain what exactly I do feel like; my head doesn’t hurt, but it feels foggy, and my eyes feel weird, like I have to continuously blink, they’re so dry; and I know I haven’t been crying, but my throat aches like I’ve been sobbing violently for hours on end. I run a hand down the side of my face and take the plate from Jehan. 

 

_ Can we talk? About last night, I mean.  _ I think about it- telling the bartender to call Enjolras, and having Jehan, who had his phone, pick me up, and even before then, with Combeferre and Courfeyrac at dinner, and in my flat, with all of Enjolras’ stuff surrounding us- and I shake my head no, picking at the pancakes Jehan made.  _ Grantaire, you can’t bundle all this up! You have to talk to us, you know.  _ They look concerned, and immediately I feel guilty for pushing them away. 

 

_ I’m sorry.  _

 

_ Don’t apologize.  _

 

_ I should, though. I am sorry.  _

 

_ You… I said that wrong, okay?  _ They look into my eyes, setting their hand on the crook of my elbow, and suddenly the room feels hot and claustrophobic, and I squirm under their gaze.  _ You… Look, I understand what you’re going through.  _ No you don’t, I think but don’t say. They didn’t lose someone the way I lost someone.  _ And you’re allowed to go through everything the way you do, but… But we’re all here for you, and we can’t, we don’t like to see you go through things this way. It clearly isn’t helping, I guess? And, I don’t mean to intrude, or anything, but I just.... We all wish that you could talk to us, and let us help, let us in, y’know?  _ I shrug, swallowing. I don’t know, and I don’t know what to say, either, so I swallow again, taking a bite of food.  _ You used to love my pancakes. I put the cinnamon in them like you loved.  _

 

_ Yeah.  _ I nod.  _ I can taste them.  _ I don’t say that I don’t want to eat them because I feel guilty eating when Enjolras can’t eat anything anymore, or that I want to keep eating until I die and never stop because I want to fill the hole inside me that I can’t seem to fill in any way- it just keeps getting bigger and bigger, and it feels like it’ll become a black hole sometime soon, eating me and everything around me up. 

 

_ You haven’t ate much.  _

 

_ Yeah.  _ I nod.  _ I know.  _ I lean my head onto their shoulder, setting the plate on the coffee table in front of us.  _ I’m sorry.  _

 

_ You don’t need to apologize, love.  _

 

_ I do, though. I’m sorry for pushing everyone away, I’m sorry for not eating the food you made even though it’s all I want to do.  _ I pause, thinking about Enjolras; one day, he’d told me, when he was having a particularly bad mental health day, his head leaning on my shoulder the same way mine is on Jehan’s now, that sometimes he imagines a world where he was dead, where he’d never been born at all, and that was why he tried, constantly, to make the world a better place. He’d said that it was easier to realise he’s on the earth for a reason if his reason was clear in front of him, if he was able to change things. 

 

_ Sometimes,  _ I say to Jehan, repeating his words now,  _ Sometimes I imagine that the world would be better off without me, y’know? Imagine myself dead, or never been born.  _

 

“And then, and then I look around me and see all the things that have changed, that I have helped, and it’s sometimes easier to get along, but it never feels like enough, so I continue to push, and push, so one day it may be.” 

 

Jehan leans their head onto mine, and strokes my hair slowly, and I finally truly understand what Enjolras meant when he’d said that.


End file.
